


This Time

by TimetravelingArchaeologist



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gift Fic, asoiaf rare pair secret sansa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-04 05:23:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17298581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimetravelingArchaeologist/pseuds/TimetravelingArchaeologist
Summary: This time things are different.





	This Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Snacky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snacky/gifts).



> This work, unbetaed and posted far later than I meant to, is a Secret Santa gift for the lovely Snacky for the ASOIAFRarePair Secret Santa over on Tumblr.  
> I’m so sorry this wasn’t posted on time. I hope it hits the mark nonetheless.

 

He is tied to her through his oaths, but even if he were not, she has his sword and his affection.

He wasn’t supposed to want her as he did. More than just having sworn an oath against such things. Lyanna Stark was his princess, wed to his prince… his once would be king. He was sworn to her by extension. Protector to her and the Targaryen child that she carried. But Rhaegar left her there in Dorne, with Arthur and two of his brothers, and Rhaegar never returned. Cut down by Robert Baratheon, usurper of the crown, and with that Lyanna could never go home. It didn’t matter that she had made her own decision to leave, had her own plan and alliances made, her fate was sealed the moment Rhaegar fell dead on a muddy riverbank, and again the moment the boy she delivered came screaming into the world.

But it happened without warning, and without permission anyway. In the countless days between ravens, with few others for company. They’d shared stories for their childhoods and siblings, and their dreams and fears. Finally, they shared sorrow. Somewhere in between it all they’d found a common ground and a friendship, and something that Arthur would not name, could not allow, for it had no place in the lift of a man who had sworn Kingsguard vows.

-

Lyanna stood at the window and looked at the dry landscape of Dorne. This was never a tower filled with true joy, in Rhaegar’s absence, it should have been even less so. And yet, it was the start of something that she had not known would bloom, and for that, she would forever remember it fondly.

-

She had wanted nothing to do with marrying Robert Baratheon, though what she wanted mattered little where most men were concerned. It was a good match as far as the alliances it would make and that had already been made. Robert seemed devoted to their betrothal, to her, but she could not help but think that it wasn’t her he was devoted to at all. Lyanna was simply the closest thing there was to Ned who was closer to Robert than his own blood brothers. But he would never appreciate her for the woman that she truly was, a wild northern girl with dreams or her own and the determination to make her own fate. She was nothing like her brother at all.

Her hands cupped her belly, the weight of pregnancy strained her back and tight ripples of labour coursed through her all that morning. She was already exhausted, but the midwife that had come with the wet nurse from Starfall, the one that Arthur had finally argued to send for, had told her that pacing the room would help, and so she stayed on her feet as long as she could manage.

They’d had little fresh news of the war, one started for her, made of lies she’d never intended to create, but then she hadn’t anticipated Rhaegar’s actions. When she had left and married him she had seen an opportunity for a future she couldn’t have had otherwise. Rhaegar found delight in their shared disinterest in what the world thought they should be,  he had shared with her his secrets and plans to take the throne from his mad father , and though she did not love him as a wife should love a husband, she was captivated by  all of this and of his stories of prophecy. It was the easiest choice for her to make, to offer him herself as the wife he’d need to give life to a third child with his blood. To play a part in his story, and to decide the fate of her own. As a second wife she could have the freedom she would never have with another, she’d build an alliance of her own, stronger than any other, and with a man who did not paint her as someone she was not. And Robert would never be able to go against his prince, his king. But she had not accounted for so many things.

Rhaegar setting aside Elia, though few would know that still.  Robert’s claims that she had been kidnapped, the deaths of her father and brother as they demanded she be returned. Not that she had known at the time. She had been in Dorne already, likely abed with Rhaegar as they made the babe she had offered him with such hope. A babe he had left her with while he marched to meet his death on a muddy riverbank.

It was selfish and it was not and none of it mattered anymore. The only thing that mattered was that she could never go home now. To go home would mean that her child would likely be taken or slaughtered like the rest of the Targaryens had been and that she’d be marked ruined.

-

When Eddard Stark and his companion showed up with swords in hand and demanded his sister back, Arthur could not stand by and let him take her. Not just because Lyanna did not wish it or because it would be dangerous for her, but because the babe she carried was his king. Arthur would give his life to protect the child, ensure that Baratheon never could do what he knew a usurper must. And he nearly did give it, he didn’t realise how close he had come to doing so until he heard the clatter of a blade behind him as a blood-curdling scream filled the air.

He was faster than Stark as he ran towards the sound, though the man was on his heels the whole way up the stone steps, both leaving Stark’s companion in the dust.

Inside the room at the top of the tower, the heavy copper scent of blood did not abate. He moved to the head of the bed, even though he knew there was little that he could do besides stand. But the midwife was too busy to shoo him away and so he stood guard without the ability to truly protect either of those he must from the situation they were in.

When he looked back to the door, Dawn in hand, Stark had frozen at the threshold. It had become clear that the screams were not of torture, but of a woman in the birthing bed. Lyanna screamed again, and this time she reached out and grabbed his hand, and the look that Stark gives him is one of pained confusion.

They make a truce.

-

Lyanna barely could recall the final hour that it took to push her son out. Dizzy from the pain and only wanting for it to be over. She had nearly assumed that Ned’s sudden appearance was a fever dream. One moment she had been alone with the midwife and the next her hand had found Arthur’s, and then Ned’s. Ridiculous because men did not attend births, and Ned wasn’t in Dorne. And then the babe finally slipped from her body. She was so exhausted and cold, and she closed her eyes.

When she woke she felt as cold as before, weak-limbed and as if she hadn’t slept at all. The midwife would later tell her that she had lost too much blood and that she may never bear another child. And it is a surprise to find that Ned was real after all.

-

Ned had tried to talk Lyanna into returning home. He’d claim her baby as his own bastard, Robert will never find out the truth and she could have a life as queen. Instead, she makes her confessions about everything. And knowing what Robert has done already, and Lyanna’s truths, eventually they agree to part ways. Ned will spread the news of their deaths and Lyanna and Arthur will take her son away and raise him far from Robert’s reach and knowledge.

The babe is named Jon, not what Rhaegar would have chosen, but it’s what she likes. He will never be a Targaryen king, but she will name him after a Stark king. When a few days have passed and she is strong enough, they leave the tower and Dorne thereafter.

-

They avoid news of Westeros as best they can and eventually they settle outside of Braavos. Near enough to the city, but far enough to draw minimal attention. They tell people very little about who they are when they can, and when they have to Lyanna and Jon pose as Arthur’s wife and son. When their coin runs thin Arthur find’s work on the docks, and then there are no questions at all. They are simply like any other family as far as those they interact with are concerned.

-

No, he's not supposed to want her. And perhaps that would have mattered more if things were any other way. If she hadn't wanted him back.

At first, it was easy to ignore, there were more immediate concerns, worries of where they were going to go, the journey they’d taken to get there, their basic needs once they did settle, countless things to occupy them both. But it was just them and the babe and he could not help the overwhelming feeling of want for them both.  He wanted her love, not just her body, wanting everything else she is, and to claim Jon as his own for real too, not just pretending. The brave and bold woman he has come to know. And the babe that is his king and almost his son. Perhaps he would never hold a throne, but he held as much of his heart as Lyanna has come to.

-

It would be impossible to not have developed a closeness. They do not live the way they once had. In their modest dwelling, they have little else but each other. No servants to discover who they once were, and one another for the bulk of their company. If they thought that they had gotten to know one another in the tower in Dorne, they find that they barely had known each other at all.

They have no more secrets. It’s no secret that they care for one another and that they both want more. Arthur still makes no moves and Lyanna knows that he never will.

-

When Jon was just past his first name day Lyanna pressed the first of her kisses to Arthur’s mouth. He reluctantly pulled away with a sigh.

“I took vows to-” Lyanna cut him off. “You took vows for a king and a prince that are no more.”

Arthur looked at Jon where he lay sleeping in his cradle and took in his tiny pink lips and dark curls. “Jon has my vow now.”

Lyanna let out a laugh that lacked humour. “He’ll never be king, Arthur. He doesn’t need a Kingsguard. He needs a father. And I need you.”  
  
Her eyes were sad and she left him alone in the room and didn’t return until it was nearly dawn. He sat there thinking about what could be his, and when Lyanna returned he prayed that the gods would understand and forgive him for his choice.

-

They’re already married as far as anyone they know are concerned, but on a warm morning, Arthur and Lyanna took vows in a temple in front of a god that neither were raised with. They followed rituals that were not their own, and as they drip blood into a brazier the priestess dressed in red gripped their hands and gave them a sharp look.

“The Lord of Light blesses your union. Your son’s birth was foretold in the flames by R’hllor. When we meet again he will do great things. One day he will wield the dawn and vanquish the dark night.”

She let go just as strangely abrupt and finished her ritual. Lyanna held Jon closer, wary of prophecy even as ridiculous at that had seemed. When it was over Arthur pressed a kiss to her face and then Jon’s too. The priestess was forgotten soon after.

And then, though they lack a heart tree, they take vows again in the privacy of their home, speaking those familiar to Lyanna and hope that her gods will hear them.

-

When he first went to Lyanna’s bed he was hesitant, not because either was unsure of each other or inexperienced, but because it was far too much like a dream he could wake from.  Nothing tasted so sweet or as much like home as Lyanna’s lips on his, their bodies laid out on rough homespun bedding, in a tiny home on the shore of a foreign land.  
  


She quickly chased away all hesitancy with the boldness that he had come to love so easily.

It did not matter that their love had sprung up in a tragedy. That their paths had been altered in ways they hadn’t originally chosen. As a husband and a father, he found a greater service, one that he thought was gods given after all. And Lyanna was never forced into anything she had not sought out of her own will.

-

In the flames, the red priestess watched a young man, a prince, wield a sword made of light, of the Dawn, and knew that she’d gotten it right this time.


End file.
